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Samsung HD RMA procedure?

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MadMan007

Magical Leopluridon Senior
Joined
Nov 28, 2001
Location
in a magical field
Hiya, just looking for some info from people who may have done a HD RMA through Samsung. I'm considering their 1TB 7200RPM drive because of the excellent balance of speed and low noise. One thing that's confusing is their RMA procedure in case I have a problem down the line, WD and Seagate are easy right on their websites. Every place quotes 3 years for Samsung drives, but on the Samsung site it says warranty is through the retailer/dealer with no way to submit an RMA. Am I missing something or what?

Thanks.
 
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I think I read the same reviews as you on Newegg :D. [apparently Samsung is a PITA to return stuff to for RMA]

The 5400 rpm 1TB drive has lower fail rates so I opted for that one in my external enclosure. I would avoid the 7200rpm model, it's got a history now of failing in a few months. Same issue does not seem to be the case with the 5400, probably entirely different internal hardware. WD and Seagate are close in pricing for the 7200rpm models, I would go with those if you need 7200rpm.
 
The reason I was looking at the Samsung is that it's performance:noise level is the best of any drive, the other drives that are speedy are noisy on seek and the ones that are quiet are slower (this is for 1TB drives.) The Newegg reviews were part of my motivation but I know that people are more likely to report failures and there are lots of drives where you can find failure reports on the Egg that lots of people have running just fine :shrug:

I have emailed Samsung and am just waiting for a reply.
 
The Newegg reviews were part of my motivation but I know that people are more likely to report failures and there are lots of drives where you can find failure reports on the Egg that lots of people have running just fine :shrug:

That's true, but in this case the reviews were pretty lobsided compared to most other available drives. Regardless of Samsung's response I would personally steer you away from that particular drive just on what I've read. I was just going through all this in my spare time over the weekend and ended up buying the 5400rpm as a result of reading several reviews and weighing my needs. I'm condensing some of that research here for you :).

The Seagate isn't supposed to be THAT loud. None of the modern drives are LOUD compared to drives made just 3 or 4 years ago (I have a 160GB that's very loud compared to the newer 320GB in the same machine).
 
It's just random seeks that are loud. My definitoin of loud is different from other people's too when I'm going for silence...I consider the Corsair VX450 to be 'not silent' (although not noisy) where others swear it is. I appreciate your input, I'll continue to look for info on Samsung's drive too.
 
FWIW, the 5400rpm is very quiet and certainly fast enough for the usb 2.0 enclosure... dead silent actually, which I know has been one of Samsung's selling points.
 
Yea, wish there was a review of the 5400RPM that I could compare to other 1TB drives. I'll have to look for one. I'm not sure why the 5400RPM would be especially more reliable though? I thought it was just early drives that had problems, they were one of the first 1TB out.
 
I don't think it's the date of the drive as much as a specific hardware defect on a particular model. At least I didn't see any pattern that said that after a certain date the drives were/were not reliable. The guts of the 5400rpm are supposedly different.

I doubt the 5400 would perform on par with the 7200 model. 5400 is defiitely too slow for a primary os partition by today's standards. In laptops 5400 are still common, and I can almost always tell when I'm using a laptop with e 5400rpm drive.

Did you see the Seagates are on sale at Dell? Check cyber deals. The price might swing you to living with a couple dbs of extra noise...
 
:eek: Seagates rather than Samsung? There's loads of complaints about 7200.11 failures, could just be complaints though. The price is really similar anyway.
 
Regardless of model or HD type, I'd never hesitate with a Seagate. The thing I always keep at the front of my mind is what I'm paying. These drives are a compromise in quality for their price. They're designed to last a certain rated number of hours (averaged). No hard drive will last forever, and I certainly don't recommend buying known problem drives like the deathstars were back in the day (nothing to say these dying 7200 Samsung's aren't on the same path), but there is a compromise made by all drive manufacturers in the pricing war. In other words - the crap-shoot in buying hard drives is implied. :p

I have not heard about any known problems with the 7200.11 drives (at least nothing out of the ordinary). But by all means, if you find some hard evidence there's issues please post them here! :)
 
Hey Madman - keep us informed about Samsungs reply.

I like you went down the samsung route (SP120) drives mainly for their performance:noise level and have always been happy. The new 1TB drive has had good reviews over on silentpc too.
 
Well as I posted here http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=585534 I decided to try the WD Caviar Black 1TB. It was a tossup between the Black and a GP, both have advantages, maybe I should have tried the GPs they are known to be quiet but I didn't want the 10EACS and the 10EADS was as much or more than the Black. Aside from DOA randomness longevity is tough to judge but the WD has the fewest complaints of any 7200RPM drive and a 5 year warranty, especially the 'died 3 months later' ones. The subjective noise ratings are all over the place, the objective measurements say it's loud but there's dBA and there's the quality of the sound which I can only know once I've got the drive. I'm also going to try turning the AAM to max silence if it's not already, it makes a big difference in seek noise on the WD6400AAKS. plus I'll silence the case and softmount the drives.
 
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